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As you all know, Apple is offering some refurbished G5 deals right now.

Power Mac G5 DUAL 2GHz/ 512MB/ 160GB/ SuperDrive/ PCI-X/ GeFr5200/ GigE/ 56K - Apple Certified
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• Save 17% off the original price

Original price: $2,499.00
Your price: $2,099.00


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The other day, they had a different G5 without the GeFr5200 that was a little cheaper, but if you looked at the original price, it was like $2999. The above was $2499. This didn't make a whole lot of sense to me? I am sorry I did not get around to this post until they removed the other G5 from the listing.

Did anyone see it? If so, why was the G5 without the video card more expensive originally?

thanks.

Here is the limited info on the other unit:

Power Mac G5 DUAL 2GHz 512MB/ 160GB/ SuperDrive/ GigE/ 56K - Apple Certified

Cost is $1999 (original was $2999). Why less on current cost, but much more on original cost)?

Both are essentially the same. The $2999 unit is the original Rev A G5 which was the first model to be released and costed $2999. The $2499 G5 is the Rev B unit released in June 2004. The price is mentioned like that so users know which generation it belongs to.

The June 2004 Rev B ($2499) unit has IBM 970fx CPU's which are smaller and consume less power...

Other things are almost the same I guess.
Hope that helps

The June 2004 model might come with 90nm 970fx processors, but the majority are still being manufactured with the older 130nm 970 processors--the same as the previous model. The 970fx definitely draws less power, but on the 1.8 and 2.0GHz machines, there's no assurance that you'll get a machine with 970fx processors--in fact it appears you're more likely to not get the newer CPUs. The DP2.5 is the only machine that guarantees you'll have the 970fx.

There are a couple other differences between the rev. A (previously $2999) and rev. B ($2499). The rev. B has a newer memory controller, the U3H (H for "Heavy"), while the rev. A has the U3. The U3H has higher bandwidth but runs much hotter than the U3 and is implicated in the main logic board fan revving problems that are usually associated with the DP2.5, but can also been seen in the rev. B DP2.0s, particularly if they come with 970 CPUs.

The other difference is the stock video card. The rev. B ships with a GeForce FX5200 Ultra and the rev. A shipped with a Radeon 9600Pro. The 9600Pro in the stock configuration of the rev. A is actually a better card.

Thanks for pointing these things. I was looking forward to fnd out the difeerences in detail myself

I got my Rev 2 G5 Dual 2.0 in December and it is a PowerPC 3.0 CPU which is a 970fx. Similarly all my friends go the same.

I didn't know anything whatsoever about the memory controller difference, so thank you Al G. Is there any place to find documentation on this subject? For the record, my June 2004 G5 (ordered from the Apple Store Online in late June) is a 970 Mac.

Sorry, I don't have links off the top of my head. Documentation might be out there but I couldn't tell you where to look.

My information comes from owning both a rev. A and rev. B DP2.0 and from various forums, including this one, g5support.com, xlr8yourmac.com, etc. My rev. B has 970 processors and was a late October 2004 build. And on the rev. B that main logic board fan goes nuts most of the time. I'm still waiting for a call from Apple engineering about it.

The memory controller information came from a guy who posts on the xlr8yourmac.com forums, who is an engineer (not for Apple though) and extremely knowledgeable and probably reads most of the tech information available from IBM and Apple. And unlike me, he seems to understand it.